“Next it was the Koreans’ turn to face their makers.” The bedroom disappeared and the video room came to light. Fong entered the projected room. Chen had set up the VCR and porno film as Fong had requested: a lurid image paused on the monitor. “The film was right here. Thirty-two minutes in. Thirty-two minutes since it had been turned on. At the point of the third copulation, if you’d care to check?” Dr. Roung stood like a man in an open field during a lightning storm, unsure whether to run or stand still. “Well, don’t check then. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Be that as it may, thirty-two minutes was long enough for the poison to almost paralyze the Koreans.” Then Fong turned to Dr. Roung. “These three men watched helplessly as they were hung by wire from that beam and then shot through the armpits and allowed to die. This one’s actually the simplest. Someone had a score to settle. Foreigners always forget that we have long memories, don’t they? Why do you figure that is, sir?”
The archeologist was about to speak then thought better of it.
“I figure it was sometime after they killed the Koreans that our intrepid hooker found her way to the deck and lo and behold, guess who’s there? An old fisherman. Now why would he be there, do you think? Huh?”
The archeologist looked away. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with you, would it, Dr. Roung? I mean this fisherman wouldn’t, for example, be taking you to the boat, would he? Now why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.” The words sounded ancient in the man’s mouth.
“Really! I thought you were the puzzle solver here, Dr. Roung.”
“I don’t know!” the archeologist said louder.
“Well, there were some things you didn’t know. That I grant. Surprises. Oh, there were big surprises, weren’t there? Follow me.” After a moment of darkness, the bar room with the faceless Chinese men snapped on. Fong crossed to a wall and picked up the broad flat hewer that Lily had placed there. It was the kind the islanders used to build trenches and cleave paths. He held it up. The light glinted off its sharpened edge. “Very effective for removing faces, I’d think. Bloody though. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so bloody?”
The archeologist stood directly beneath where the swaying man would have been and turned to Fong. “Detective Zhong, I found something on that island – not something – someone. Someone and something of real value. Timeless value.”
Fong stood and waited. He imagined the swaying man, a bizarre pendulum in a world where time stood still.
“The dead girl, Chu Shi, Jiajia’s wife,” Fong stated flatly.
“Not just her. The whole possibility of something that lasts. Something beyond time.”
“And these mutilated men . . . ?”
“These Chinese men were willing to sell our very birthright. To sell something that is us – no, the very thing that is us – to make our entity into stupid little clay statues and sell them to foreigners.”
Fong walked past the projections of the faceless men at the bar and the others by the mirror. Then he turned to Dr. Roung, a surprised look on his face. “This was your idea?” It wasn’t an accusation. Just a simple question.
“Justice for what they were doing to us, don’t you see?”
Fong allowed his head to nod slowly. “Traitors.”
“Traitors to the black-haired people – yes, Zhong Fong, traitors who met their just reward.”
Fong nodded again then slowly walked out of the projected bar. Dr. Roung followed him like a beaten dog on a long leash.
Everything went dark. Then the runway room projection lit up. But this room was more than just a projection. The curtain was there. The runway was there. The six chairs were there – five occupied by dummies.
Fong entered the room. He pressed a wall switch and the runway lights came on. He pressed a second and the Counting Crows song “Angels of the Silences” began to play. He didn’t look back. “The islanders didn’t tell you about this, though, did they? Did they?” he snapped.
A harsh whispered, “No,” came from the darkness.
“Justice is a hard thing, Dr. Roung. It’s not a thing that can be pieced together from whole cloth. You never have all the pieces when you try to find justice. And your justice and the islanders’ justice may not – no – are not the same. Are they?”
“No.” The archeologist took off his army-issue glasses and rubbed his eyes. The last piece fell into place and Fong laughed.
“What?”
“Your glasses.”
“What about them.”
“Glasses are hard to get, aren’t they? Especially designer glasses. Right from the start, your glasses bothered me. Thinsulate vest and old army-issue glasses.” Fong strode over to the dummy of the eviscerated, castrated Japanese man with the fancy Parisian eyeglasses wobbly on his head. Fong pulled them off and turned to Dr. Roung. “Want them back?”
The man went white and stiff.
Fong reached into his pants and took something from his pocket. “Maybe you’d like this back.” He opened his fingers revealing the bronze statue of a horse’s frontquarters that he had taken from the archeologist’s desk.” Dr. Roung lunged at it, but Fong moved quickly aside. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dr. Roung didn’t answer, then nodded. “The hindquarters are beautiful too.”
“You’ve seen . . .”
He reached into his other pocket and brought out the hindquarters. Fong continued quickly. “What an unusual girl she must have been. She died of the first recorded case of typhoid on the island in – what – a hundred years? Dug up so an autopsy could be performed. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Dr. Roung nodded slowly again.
“Then she was buried a second time.” Fong paused and waited for the archeologist to take a breath. When he did, Fong added, “Then dug up again.”
Fong moved to the light switch and dimmed the lights. Then he plunged the room into darkness. “Did you know the fisherman was her father? That’s why her immune system wasn’t strong enough to protect her from the typhoid.” A long silence followed then another Counting Crows song, “Daylight Fading,” came up loudly. Beside him in the dark, Fong could hear the archeologist sobbing quietly.
Fong took a breath and pressed hard on the light switch. The stage blared into shocking light. And there, wrapped in filthy, night soil-sodden, crimson burial cloth, stood the partially naked body of Chu Shi, her back to them, held up by a pole.
A long tortured breath came from Dr. Roung.
The music increased in volume and Chu Shi seemed to move to the rhythm despite being dead and propped up on a stick.
“The Japanese were already dead when you arrived in the room. Weren’t they? Sure they were. After the fun with the Americans, the islanders split up, didn’t they? You and Iman led the revenge against the Taiwanese, but Jiajia had plans of his own in here, didn’t he? He and his men killed them and cut them open. Their intestines in their hands facing the stage. When you finally arrived, all the islanders were here, waiting. This was the finale, after all! Sure it was. Absolutely. Except it wasn’t the finale you thought. This wasn’t for them. This was for you. For the one who dared to sleep with one of their women. This wasn’t political. This was personal, wasn’t it? This was to prove to you that Chu Shi was nothing more than a whore who’d take off her clothes for anyone who had money. Who’d fuck anyone, from anywhere – after all, she was just a whore – wasn’t she?”